Chipset Question

Hello,

I'm looking at building a 2700K system and was wondering what the differences between chipsets that are available would be. I will be SLI'ing two 570's and may be doing some mild over-clocking. Also, a motherboard recommendation would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Don't waste your money on the 2700k, all you are doing is paying extra money for a higher stock OC from Intel. The chip is exactly the same as the 2600k, the 2700k just has a 0.1GHz higher stock clock but costs $50 more. Get the 2600k and let digital storm OC it for you.

Hi Aroberts0820... Sli and pci lanes are both motherboard depend.  Whether you pick the i7-2600k or i5-2500k, etc doesn't matter.

Originally posted by jmaster299 and at 2500x1600 you'll need x3 SLI.

Nah, not at all. I've been playing at 2560x1600 for just over a year now haven't had anything Lilim couldn't walk all over with just an i7 920 and two 480s (which are very comparable to 570s, bit more memory). A newer 2600k with two 570s or 580s would do even better, you would definitely not need three of any of these high end cards.

I've put countless hours into the majority of the prominent demanding games at that resolution and max settings, namely Anno 2070, the STALKER series, all three Crysis games (with DX11 and hi-def patches for C2), Metro 2033, SWTOR, etc. Plus highly modded numerous other titles. Amusingly out of all of these Anno 2070 is probably the hardest to run for whatever reason, it will really make those 480s go full tilt and roar.

I have not played BF3, but I highly doubt it would be any harder to run than any of the others above. If it was then it just isn't utilizing SLI/CF worth a darn yet.

That was a chin scratcher there. My first thought was that there has been a hell of a lot of driver improvements since 2010 when those benches were done, but then it occurred to me that its actually been a really long time since I've played it so better check my dates.

And hurr durr turns out last time I played it was in Dec of 2010 as well, which is about three months before I got my 2560x1600 monitor, so cross that one off the list my memory failed me and I played it at 1920x1200.

That said, I do know for a fact that I had all graphics at max settings with AAA and even Depth of Field enabled while playing at 1920x1200 and that it played absolutely buttery smooth. It by far played the most smoothly between those three particularly hard to run series (STALKER, Metro, Crysis). I'm a huuuuge STALKER fanboy so I jumped into Metro with a huge bias expecting terrible frame rates and whatnot but I ended up being pleasantly surprised, so my props to them for making such a SLI friendly game.

All the rest I have definitely run at 2560x1600 though, some a great many hours even.